Otter update

The otter that was brought in by the RSPCA on Saturday was x-rayed this morning and I for one was not looking forward to the results.

Anaesthetising him to allow us to position him for the picture is a mammoth task in itself as otters are probably one of the most difficult species of British wildlife to handle. They have an incredibly nasty bite, they cannot be picked up by the scruff, as we would with a fox, as they are pure muscle and there is nothing to get hold of on the neck. A grasper is almost impossible to use on them (and we very rarely use them anyway as they are mostly unnecessary and cause a great deal of stress to the animal). They are so streamlined that they just slip straight through the grasper.

In the end he was quite obliging and went into the crush cage quite willingly, and I was then able to hold the anaesthetic mask over his face with hardly any resistence from him.

We (myself and Tim, our vet) then took 2 x-rays and, while he was knocked out, Tim took some blood from him to make sure he had no other problems.

Much to our relief, the x-rays didn't reveal any fractures or other problems and so we think that his unwillingness to use one front leg is simply because of soft tissue damage and is too painful to move.

He does seem to be improving slowly so we are treating him with anti-inflammatories, pain relief and antibiotics and will reassess in a few days.

This afternoon we took this picture of him flat out on his back where he had been sleeping peacefully until we went in to check on him.